Watchmen (HBO TV series)

[Analyzer]

I keep seeing the "season ending cliffhanger" mentioned, but as far as I was concerned, the story was over

Whether or not Angela was able to "walk on water" really has no bearing on the story of that season. It might have set up a continuation point, but it is also perfectly fine if that question is never answered simply because that really is a whole new story to tell. Regardless of the outcome, nothing in season 1 relies on that being answered to be resolved other than is shew the new dr

Plus if there was a second season, I would have preferred a different group of heroes/villains kind of anthology style.

 

[Sundowner]

I really wanted to see Nite Owl II

 

[Solo4114]

Narratively speaking, I think this makes sense. There's kinda nowhere to take the story that is dramatically interesting at this point.

Angela has, presumably, Dr. Manhattan's power. In essence, the power of a god. She can accomplish things with a thought. So....where do you take that? What do you do with it?

Dr. Manhattan became what he was partially because of who he had been, and also because of how he had changed. He rebuilt himself, atom by atom, after the accident which created him. That whole process created a person who was detached from the experiences he'd had as a regular human. But Angela simply inherited his power, not his experiences. Presumably, she retains her personality, her experiences. As such, she's very much tied to the world in a way that Dr. Manhattan was not (Cal might've been, though).

So, she can basically will white supremacy out of existence in the blink of an eye. She can do it violently by making people explode a la Rorschach. Or she can do it non-violently by simply...evaporating them or making them wink out of existence with no fanfare at all. She's that powerful.

How do you begin to challenge a character like that? Or do you have them slowly go insane and become casually dismissive of all human life, the way Adrian was dismissive of the clones he created? Would that be a satisfying story to watch?

Would you instead have to invent things that hamper Angela's power? Like she suddenly has an achilles heel that is...I dunno...cat dander? Bees? Garlic? Plutonium? Do you have her kids constantly be put in jeopardy? How do you create tension and drama for a god? How do you make that resonate with the audience?

I think it's incredibly difficult because you end up probably in one of two general places:

1. Gratuitous fan-wanking wish fulfillment! Angela goes on a rampage and destroys all the racists of the world! Thrill at the increasingly elaborate ways in which she eviscerates -- often literally! -- the opposition!

or

2. Contrived scenarios designed to keep her power limited. Angela has a critical weakness that gets exploited! Angela's kids are endangered! Angela suffers from a really bad case of the runs (hey, even gods gotta go sometimes)! Angela needs therapy, but nobody is qualified to psychoanalyze a deity!

I think it's better to just call it quits there and say "There's no more story left to tell." At least with these characters. I mean, if you have the power of a god and you AREN'T using it to eradicate racism, then aren't you kind of wasting your abilities? If you have the power of a god and you use it to do just that, though, well now you've made a really boring story.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

Narratively speaking, I think this makes sense. There's kinda nowhere to take the story that is dramatically interesting at this point.

Angela has, presumably, Dr. Manhattan's power. In essence, the power of a god. She can accomplish things with a thought. So....where do you take that? What do you do with it?

Dr. Manhattan became what he was partially because of who he had been, and also because of how he had changed. He rebuilt himself, atom by atom, after the accident which created him. That whole process created a person who was detached from the experiences he'd had as a regular human. But Angela simply inherited his power, not his experiences. Presumably, she retains her personality, her experiences. As such, she's very much tied to the world in a way that Dr. Manhattan was not (Cal might've been, though).

So, she can basically will white supremacy out of existence in the blink of an eye. She can do it violently by making people explode a la Rorschach. Or she can do it non-violently by simply...evaporating them or making them wink out of existence with no fanfare at all. She's that powerful.

How do you begin to challenge a character like that? Or do you have them slowly go insane and become casually dismissive of all human life, the way Adrian was dismissive of the clones he created? Would that be a satisfying story to watch?

Would you instead have to invent things that hamper Angela's power? Like she suddenly has an achilles heel that is...I dunno...cat dander? Bees? Garlic? Plutonium? Do you have her kids constantly be put in jeopardy? How do you create tension and drama for a god? How do you make that resonate with the audience?

I think it's incredibly difficult because you end up probably in one of two general places:

1. Gratuitous fan-wanking wish fulfillment! Angela goes on a rampage and destroys all the racists of the world! Thrill at the increasingly elaborate ways in which she eviscerates -- often literally! -- the opposition!

or

2. Contrived scenarios designed to keep her power limited. Angela has a critical weakness that gets exploited! Angela's kids are endangered! Angela suffers from a really bad case of the runs (hey, even gods gotta go sometimes)! Angela needs therapy, but nobody is qualified to psychoanalyze a deity!

I think it's better to just call it quits there and say "There's no more story left to tell." At least with these characters. I mean, if you have the power of a god and you AREN'T using it to eradicate racism, then aren't you kind of wasting your abilities? If you have the power of a god and you use it to do just that, though, well now you've made a really boring story.

Agreed 100%. And I believe this is basically Lindelof’s stance as well. Angela has the power of a god, with an attachment to reality, and the experience to know what can happen. She’s basically impossible to harm...so the story would be boring. Lindelof stayed in an interview that while there were places to take a story, none of it seemed interesting or entertaining.

 

[Analyzer]

Narratively speaking, I think this makes sense. There's kinda nowhere to take the story that is dramatically interesting at this point.

Angela has, presumably, Dr. Manhattan's power. In essence, the power of a god. She can accomplish things with a thought. So....where do you take that? What do you do with it?

Dr. Manhattan became what he was partially because of who he had been, and also because of how he had changed. He rebuilt himself, atom by atom, after the accident which created him. That whole process created a person who was detached from the experiences he'd had as a regular human. But Angela simply inherited his power, not his experiences. Presumably, she retains her personality, her experiences. As such, she's very much tied to the world in a way that Dr. Manhattan was not (Cal might've been, though).

So, she can basically will white supremacy out of existence in the blink of an eye. She can do it violently by making people explode a la Rorschach. Or she can do it non-violently by simply...evaporating them or making them wink out of existence with no fanfare at all. She's that powerful.

How do you begin to challenge a character like that? Or do you have them slowly go insane and become casually dismissive of all human life, the way Adrian was dismissive of the clones he created? Would that be a satisfying story to watch?

Would you instead have to invent things that hamper Angela's power? Like she suddenly has an achilles heel that is...I dunno...cat dander? Bees? Garlic? Plutonium? Do you have her kids constantly be put in jeopardy? How do you create tension and drama for a god? How do you make that resonate with the audience?

I think it's incredibly difficult because you end up probably in one of two general places:

1. Gratuitous fan-wanking wish fulfillment! Angela goes on a rampage and destroys all the racists of the world! Thrill at the increasingly elaborate ways in which she eviscerates -- often literally! -- the opposition!

or

2. Contrived scenarios designed to keep her power limited. Angela has a critical weakness that gets exploited! Angela's kids are endangered! Angela suffers from a really bad case of the runs (hey, even gods gotta go sometimes)! Angela needs therapy, but nobody is qualified to psychoanalyze a deity!

I think it's better to just call it quits there and say "There's no more story left to tell." At least with these characters. I mean, if you have the power of a god and you AREN'T using it to eradicate racism, then aren't you kind of wasting your abilities? If you have the power of a god and you use it to do just that, though, well now you've made a really boring story.

^exactly (much better than I could have said it)

If this does eventually get revisited, I want a different part of that universe. Maybe something covering the time frame when Night Owl and Laurie wound up in prison. or maybe even just a whole new group of people in the future. They could have some cameos by the current cast including Angela, but I don't want/need a continuation of Angela's story.

Like Star Wars, there are so many different stories that could take place in the same shared universe, but different people's stories that could be told outside the original

 

[SpyderDan]

My take on Dr. Manhattan has always been that Moore's point with the character was that if such a being were to come into existence, that they would ultimately not become an altruistic superhero like Superman, regardless of intentions. Dr. Manhattan essentially lost his humanity, and eventually left Earth and humanity behind. Watchmen has always been about deconstructing the idea of superheroes, and Dr. Manhattan is the "what if" of actually having extraordinary powers.

In the HBO Watchmen, the human characters such as Will Reeves and Lady Trieu comment about how Dr. Manhattan did not do enough, given the powers that he had. Lady Trieu intended to give herself Dr. Manhattan's abilities so that she could use them to save the world in all the ways that Dr. Manhattan never did. Of course, her motivations were completely narcissistic rather than altruistic, but I still think that suddenly gaining such superpowers would inevitably change the character similarly to Dr. Manhattan.

So, what could be done with Angela is to play out the scenario where she suddenly finds herself with the superpowers, and despite being the good character that was established in season one, she finds herself slipping down that same path. Despite pressure from her grandfather to do a lot more with her powers to make the world better, like Dr. Manhattan never really did, she finds out all the reasons why Dr. Manhattan never did. We would get to see her coming to terms with the realities of her deceased husband's situation, that she could never previously understand. I would have no problem with this ultimately leading the character down the same path as Dr. Manhattan, and eventually losing touch with her own humanity. Everybody wants to believe that they would do amazing things with such powers, but the reality of it is simply beyond human comprehension, and that's the whole point.

For a second season of the show, I would not center it around Angela as the main character. I would shift the focus to human characters, because Angela is no longer human. Dan Dreiberg could be explored, flashing back to how he ended up in prison, while Laurie ended up becoming a hunter of masked heroes for the FBI. It could follow through in the present with bringing Veidt to justice, and all that would imply for Laurie and Dan for their involvement, having known the truth all along. Perhaps Angela, finally understanding the realities of Dr. Manhattan's powers, can intervene and shine a new light on the situation.

Perhaps a good way to tie the entire thing up would be for Angela to ultimately undo the events that caused the Watchmen universe to diverge from the real-world history that we all know, restoring the history that we do know, with implications to all the various characters. I think that could be the way to deconstruct Watchmen, like Watchmen deconstructs the concept of superheroes. End it with Angela enjoying a family Christmas, in Tulsa, where she has always lived, with her parents and grandparents alive, married to the original Cal, with children of their own, nobody the wiser to the alternate reality where masked heroes and people with god-like powers screwed everything up.

However, the entire season leading up to such an ending could be free to explore an even more screwed up history, taken to whatever extreme might cause Angela to ultimately undo it all.

Or, instead of re-aligning the Watchmen universe with our own, it ends up creating an alternate history that is better than our reality. Maybe this new reality never became the socially divisive world that we currently know, where everybody has gone to political extremes, and can't enjoy Star Wars and Star Trek anymore without all the hate and vitriol. Maybe modern movies and television don't suck so bad in this reality, because art imitates life, leaving us to realize that we are all part of the problem that got us to the dismal reality that we currently know and complain about on the internet.

Crazy as it may sound, I think that would actually be in the spirit of Alan Moore's intentions with the original graphic novel. Humans are going to be humans, and fantasies about superheroes are unrealistic, and ultimately just a reflection of human psychology and history. Watchmen is about showing the "what if", and showing that it would not be like in the traditional superhero stories, with truth and justice for all, and good triumphing over evil. Our world didn't need such characters to prevent humanity from destroying itself in nuclear Armageddon, but humanity still finds plenty of other ways to screw the world up anyway. We're all just slightly less "dumb" apes, lost in our contrived sense of intelligent superiority and mastery of our own world.

While I would actually be perfectly satisfied to let the HBO Watchmen stand alone as the single season, I think there is plenty left to be explored, and plenty that could be compelling about it moving forward for another season or two. Just playing devil's advocate here.

 

[SpyderDan]

Another simple alternative would be to have season 2 start off with Angela falling into the pool, and saying "************!". Dr. Manhattan eventually returns, since his energy never became appropriated by any of the characters that hoped to gain his power, and the very first trick he ever learned was to reassemble himself. Carry on with the Watchmen universe, as it was.

Then explore the backstory of Dan and Laurie, perhaps from the point of view of Lube-Man, exploring why he became obsessed with the masked-hero phenomenon. Find out what happens with Veidt, and whether he can end up picking up where his daughter left off, or perhaps become foiled by the other characters Maybe the clones on Europa follow Veidt's example, and find a way out. Maybe the history of Veidt's scheme is exposed, and the world learns that there never was any sort of inter-dimensional squid threat, with all sorts of world-changing ramifications. There are endless possibilities beyond exploring Angela getting Dr. Manhattan powers.

I thought that the HBO Watchmen did a great job of doing what science-fiction does at it's best. It allows us to explore our own realities through an alternative perspective that distances us enough from our actual reality to keep our inherent bias from interfering too much.

Star Trek used to be a great example of that. There you had a fantasy socialist utopia in the future, yet people did not reject it, even in a time that was not far removed from the realities of McCarthy-ism. Recently, I've seen a bunch of old-school Star Trek fans becoming angered over Patrick Stewart's statements about his intentions for the new Picard show to reflect his own views on the current political states of the US and UK. Presumably, they object because this conflicts with their own politics, so they denounce it before giving it a chance. However, the old-school Star Trek they are pining for was already pushing a political agenda that conflicts with their own in the first place, whether they realized it or not. That just leaves me scratching my head...

However, I feel like the HBO Watchmen show did a great job of doing the same, even less removed from our current reality. Maybe that is why plenty of people did reject it, for it's politics. Personally, I feel like it did a wonderful job of showing that either political side, taken to the extreme, does not end well. I don't see any reason why it could not continue to do so, whether Angela gets the Dr. Manhattan powers, or not.

 

[Krieger]

not for nothing, lube man is a loose end. did he lose his mind, or that was the start of an origin story? we may never know. (edited - phrasing!)

 

[Sundowner]

not for nothing, lube man is a loose end. did he lose his mind, or that was the start of an origin story? we may never know. (edited - phrasing!)

There is a joke in there

 

[Krieger]

There is a joke in there

I guess I didn’t edit enough! Darn you Lindelof for making such a good series, and setting me up on my RPF post

 

[Krieger]

Press Release—IT IS NOW 100 SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT

Doomsday Clock Now Closer to Midnight Than Ever in Its History; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Cite Worsening Nuclear Threat, Lack of Climate

thebulletin.org

i really need my mirror mask now

 

[Solo4114]

My take on Dr. Manhattan has always been that Moore's point with the character was that if such a being were to come into existence, that they would ultimately not become an altruistic superhero like Superman, regardless of intentions. Dr. Manhattan essentially lost his humanity, and eventually left Earth and humanity behind. Watchmen has always been about deconstructing the idea of superheroes, and Dr. Manhattan is the "what if" of actually having extraordinary powers.

In the HBO Watchmen, the human characters such as Will Reeves and Lady Trieu comment about how Dr. Manhattan did not do enough, given the powers that he had. Lady Trieu intended to give herself Dr. Manhattan's abilities so that she could use them to save the world in all the ways that Dr. Manhattan never did. Of course, her motivations were completely narcissistic rather than altruistic, but I still think that suddenly gaining such superpowers would inevitably change the character similarly to Dr. Manhattan.

So, what could be done with Angela is to play out the scenario where she suddenly finds herself with the superpowers, and despite being the good character that was established in season one, she finds herself slipping down that same path. Despite pressure from her grandfather to do a lot more with her powers to make the world better, like Dr. Manhattan never really did, she finds out all the reasons why Dr. Manhattan never did. We would get to see her coming to terms with the realities of her deceased husband's situation, that she could never previously understand. I would have no problem with this ultimately leading the character down the same path as Dr. Manhattan, and eventually losing touch with her own humanity. Everybody wants to believe that they would do amazing things with such powers, but the reality of it is simply beyond human comprehension, and that's the whole point.

For a second season of the show, I would not center it around Angela as the main character. I would shift the focus to human characters, because Angela is no longer human. Dan Dreiberg could be explored, flashing back to how he ended up in prison, while Laurie ended up becoming a hunter of masked heroes for the FBI. It could follow through in the present with bringing Veidt to justice, and all that would imply for Laurie and Dan for their involvement, having known the truth all along. Perhaps Angela, finally understanding the realities of Dr. Manhattan's powers, can intervene and shine a new light on the situation.

Perhaps a good way to tie the entire thing up would be for Angela to ultimately undo the events that caused the Watchmen universe to diverge from the real-world history that we all know, restoring the history that we do know, with implications to all the various characters. I think that could be the way to deconstruct Watchmen, like Watchmen deconstructs the concept of superheroes. End it with Angela enjoying a family Christmas, in Tulsa, where she has always lived, with her parents and grandparents alive, married to the original Cal, with children of their own, nobody the wiser to the alternate reality where masked heroes and people with god-like powers screwed everything up.

However, the entire season leading up to such an ending could be free to explore an even more screwed up history, taken to whatever extreme might cause Angela to ultimately undo it all.

Or, instead of re-aligning the Watchmen universe with our own, it ends up creating an alternate history that is better than our reality. Maybe this new reality never became the socially divisive world that we currently know, where everybody has gone to political extremes, and can't enjoy Star Wars and Star Trek anymore without all the hate and vitriol. Maybe modern movies and television don't suck so bad in this reality, because art imitates life, leaving us to realize that we are all part of the problem that got us to the dismal reality that we currently know and complain about on the internet.

Crazy as it may sound, I think that would actually be in the spirit of Alan Moore's intentions with the original graphic novel. Humans are going to be humans, and fantasies about superheroes are unrealistic, and ultimately just a reflection of human psychology and history. Watchmen is about showing the "what if", and showing that it would not be like in the traditional superhero stories, with truth and justice for all, and good triumphing over evil. Our world didn't need such characters to prevent humanity from destroying itself in nuclear Armageddon, but humanity still finds plenty of other ways to screw the world up anyway. We're all just slightly less "dumb" apes, lost in our contrived sense of intelligent superiority and mastery of our own world.

While I would actually be perfectly satisfied to let the HBO Watchmen stand alone as the single season, I think there is plenty left to be explored, and plenty that could be compelling about it moving forward for another season or two. Just playing devil's advocate here.

Yeah, I think that Moore's original concept is important and worth exploring. I think it tends to be a fairly bleak view of humanity, though, and that humanity is much more of a mixed bag than he portrays it. The show, I thought, was actually pretty faithful to Moore's vision. But, I think it sort of starts to bump up against the limitations of that vision as it plays out.

Angela, for example, is deeply screwed up. (Which is true of all of Moore's "heroes.") But unlike the original Dr. Manhattan, I think her connection to her own pain, her past, her racial experience, all of that would inform upon how and when she would use her powers. If she chose not to, though, I think it would have to be made clear that it would be because she ultimately viewed their use as somehow a problem or a net harm to humanity, rather than for the more mundane reasons Moore depicts his human characters abusing or misusing their powers.

While you could conceivably keep a story going, I think continuing to focus on the characters shown in this season would be a mistake. Kind of like how a show that focused exclusively around Nite Owl, Silk Spectre II, etc. would've been a mistake. Instead, the show introduced a wide range of characters and circumstances, and took that story farther and made it a lot more interesting. In other words, I think to really do justice to Watchmen in a subsequent season, you'd have to make it an exploration of the setting rather than an exploration of the characters. This, by the way, is also what I think you ultimately need with Star Wars: focus on the setting to allow you to explore new characters and new situations, instead of endlessly examining the old ones. Break the fishbowl, if you will.

But on the whole, I think the story of Angela Abar and her connection with the Watchmen of old is...done. Digging into it further wouldn't ultimately be that satisfying, or at least the degree of difficulty in making it satisfying is way higher than just telling a different story altogether.

 

[CB2001]

I've just finished watching this. Honestly, I think it's good. I like the fact that they completely disregard the Zach Snyder film and have it following the comic. Now, with that said, I do like it. But, I think this show would have been better without it's connections to Watchmen (in fact, I read the creator of the show originally written it to not be connected to Watchmen, and it was only after one of his friends noted how similar it was to the comics that he pursued the license to do it as a tie-in. Honestly, I think the series would have been much stronger without its Watchmen connections.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

I've just finished watching this. Honestly, I think it's good. I like the fact that they completely disregard the Zach Snyder film and have it following the comic. Now, with that said, I do like it. But, I think this show would have been better without it's connections to Watchmen (in fact, I read the creator of the show originally written it to not be connected to Watchmen, and it was only after one of his friends noted how similar it was to the comics that he pursued the license to do it as a tie-in. Honestly, I think the series would have been much stronger without its Watchmen connections.

Lindelof didn’t write this until after HBO approached him to do a Watchmen series.

He had been asked a few times to work on it in the past, but didn’t take the offers up.

From what I have read in multiple places, he didn’t actually start writing this at all until late 2017.

 

[CB2001]

Lindelof didn’t write this until after HBO approached him to do a Watchmen series.

He had been asked a few times to work on it in the past, but didn’t take the offers up.

From what I have read in multiple places, he didn’t actually start writing this at all until late 2017.

Weird, I can't find where it was that I read about the show starting as a work independent of the comics and then reworked to include them. :/ Oh, well. Honestly, without the connections to the comics, I think it still would have been interesting in premise nonetheless. But the show is really good.

 

[Laspector]

Watched it this weekend, thought it was really great!! Only problem I had was the frozen squid rain at the end. How would freezing them make it anything much more than a hailstorm? He wasn't shooting them down, just dropping them. They still wouldn't be falling any faster than the speed of gravity. Yes, hailstorms can do a lot of damage and I suppose the hail would have a little more mass to it due to the frozen squids inside, but still. Enough force to puncture straight through someone's hand, yet not enough force to go through whatever that thing was Angela was holding over her head?

Anyway, that is my only nitpick. Loved the show!! One of the best I've ever seen!

 

[CB2001]

Watched it this weekend, thought it was really great!! Only problem I had was the frozen squid rain at the end. How would freezing them make it anything much more than a hailstorm? He wasn't shooting them down, just dropping them. They still wouldn't be falling any faster than the speed of gravity. Yes, hailstorms can do a lot of damage and I suppose the hail would have a little more mass to it due to the frozen squids inside, but still. Enough force to puncture straight through someone's hand, yet not enough force to go through whatever that thing was Angela was holding over her head?

Anyway, that is my only nitpick. Loved the show!! One of the best I've ever seen!

Is it wrong to find it funny the issue you have is the unrealistic portrayal of frozen, projectile squid? Because that just seems funny to me for some reason. XD

 

[Solo4114]

Watched it this weekend, thought it was really great!! Only problem I had was the frozen squid rain at the end. How would freezing them make it anything much more than a hailstorm? He wasn't shooting them down, just dropping them. They still wouldn't be falling any faster than the speed of gravity. Yes, hailstorms can do a lot of damage and I suppose the hail would have a little more mass to it due to the frozen squids inside, but still. Enough force to puncture straight through someone's hand, yet not enough force to go through whatever that thing was Angela was holding over her head?

Anyway, that is my only nitpick. Loved the show!! One of the best I've ever seen!

Depends on the physics involved. If the squids have some decent mass to them, then reaching terminal velocity might make a hit from one lethal or at least damaging.

 

[Analyzer]

For me it was one of the weaker moments of the series, but not necessarily because of the physics involved.

I can accept that in this story's context frozen squid vs unfrozen would be more damaging and maybe Veidt had some way of speeding them up as well

For me the nitpick is more because if the way it only seemed to be damaging to those without plot armor. that made that scene a bit of a head scratcher

Lady Triue's hand gets pierced and the orb gets shredded, but they can't pierce a car hood and Angela remains unharmed running for quite a distance with nothing but a brief case over her head.

That was some pretty selective targeting/shredding

Although one possible explanation...maybe Angela had unconsciously channeled her Dr Manhatten powers and affected the impact near her

 

[niennumb1]

I just finished the season.

I found myself having to rewind and rewatch a lot of parts because I kept finding myself fall asleep through so many parts.

it was well done, but at no time did I get excited. Friends kept telling me to watch this show, so I finally did, but man it felt like a real chore getting through it all.

There’s definitely some cool characters in the show and I love Angela and Looking Glass. Unfortunately I just felt god awful bored through the show and just wasn’t for me in the end.

It was definitely thoughtfully written and smart. It just felt so slow moving.